11 September 2008

A few exciting things at GBI… Part 1

In March or April I wrote some riveting articles about dependency…

I’m sure you remember but here is the summary… it isn’t great for a ministry to be dependent on foreign funds to survive… its like having a 28 year old son that still lives at home, has his mom make his bed and make his lunch while he plays Nintendo all day… that’s a loose translation…

As I wrote I was convicted to help Gaba Bible Institute work towards become self-sustaining and this term I got the green light to start a few projects…

The first project to generate income is a Choir / Preaching Tour with our top students… not one of those go to America, dress tribal garb and bang on drums tours… but a let’s visit national churches to recruit new students while encouraging Ugandan churches to pay for the training of Ugandan pastors…

I pitched the idea to the students and they thought I was crazy… “you want us to volunteer to go to churches to raise money for the school”… “Yes!”

But a group of 12 students has bought into my manic idea and we already have the next 6 Sundays booked with more to come… every where we go we are taking a special offering and challenging them to give a yearly donation of 1 cow to the school… when was the last time someone asked you for a cow at church?

The students are starting to take ownership of the group… which still has no name… in today’s meeting I asked them to suggest names and they proposed… Gospel Stormers, Ex Nihilo and the Transformers… we still have a long way to go!

I’m kind of bummed I won’t be able to go on the tour with them… having a white guy driving the van on a “Ugandan churches should pay to train Ugandan pastors tour” doesn’t go over well… but then again I’m glad I’m not going because that means the students are taking ownership of the project… that's something to get excited about!